Farmington Tales (Sim/HOG hybrid)
This is a perfect example of my most-addictive type of casual game. I'll explain below but first, the techie stuff!
Options include Full Screen/Windowed, Tutorials on/off, three Custom Cursors, and separate sliders for Music, Sound and Ambients.
How it works:Make money finding extra stuff to sell (HO Scenes), grow crops to sell at your market, make upgrades to make things more cost-effective, improve your farm.
The Hidden Object Scenes:These are your standard HO's at a glance, but there is a lot more going for them.
- Find three gems on every scene for a $ bonus. Finding gems will also open up new locations for you to explore!
- Chain bonus! Extra $ for finding items quickly in succession
- Speed bonus! Only five items will show on your list at a time. When a new item pops up, find it quickly for this $ bonus. Chain the new items that show up and earn even more money!
- Challenges! Find your challenges at the top of the scene for another $ bonus. Challenges can range from finding items from your list from left to right, not using hints, finding an item within 3 seconds of using a hint on it, finding all of the gems and more.
The challenge (and reward!) they've added makes the HO's super-addictive, and brought back the fun of finding hidden objects that has been lacking for me lately.
Hints are rechargeable, and consist of a bird that takes its time getting to the object you choose. There is an auto-hint that will activate, and you can't turn this function off, but you CAN get extra money from finding those objects quickly when the challenge to do so shows up.
QUESTS!Periodically you will get quests, which are requests from various people asking for certain items. All of the quest titles are puns such as, "Your Schwartz are as Big as Mine," and "All's Well That Bends Well." I saw at least two Firefly/Serenity references, which made me SUPER-happy!
You'll have to remember these quest items, and be on the lookout on every HOS - you never know where they'll show up! (Another challenge, W00t!)
The Farm:Plant and water crops, plow, feed livestock, collect the goods and sell them at your market. There is a lot to manage, but the game interface makes it easy to keep track of everything. Whenever an action is needed, a bubble will pop up on the screen telling you what's needed (a droplet for watering, an icon for whatever is ripe/ready for collecting, a weed for something that needs to be plowed.) Simply click on the bubble to be automatically taken to the area where you need to be.
You can zoom out to see the full farm at once, which is super-useful if you think that you forgot to plant a field.
Upgrades:There are 75 upgrades you can buy to help you along the way. You have three sorting tabs for upgrades: Farming, Animals and Blueprints (for renovating your farm.) Each area that you buy blueprints for (ie barn, fencing, treehouse, etc.) has three different styles to choose from.
Mini-games:There are five types of mini-games that will randomly show up, and you'll have to complete them in order for your farm to keep running smoothly.
- Pipes - connect the pipes so that you can water your crops
- Minesweeper - Your dog find a live mine in the field! Clear all the mines so that you can continue to plow fields
- Sudoku - A crop census is needed before you'll be allowed to sell anything in your market. Fill in all of the blank fields without repeating numbers to complete your census
- Storeroom - Your storeroom is full and you need to fit all of the shaped pieces into the room
- Untangle the wires - The front gate isn't working, and until you until you fix the wiring, customers can't access your market
I learned to be more patient with Minesweeper and Sudoku, as though you can
SKIP these minis, it's gonna cost ya! The further you are in the game, the more $ it's going to cost to skip.
Achievements and Wallpapers
There are 45 trophies to earn, and each one will earn you a $ bonus!
Under the Bonus tab on the main menu you will find all 20 HO locations
without all of the hidden objects cluttering them up.
The Verdict:Farmington Tales reminds me of the original
Gardenscapes, but with many extra levels of challenge that add to the addiction AND fun-factor! Highly recommended to anyone who likes this kind of game!
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